Friday evening, I stopped by my workplace for a few minutes. While I was chatting with one of the managers, my fiance was talking to a rather new employee, "D", a mother of three. On our way out, he stopped me from walking out the door with, "I almost forgot. D wants to talk to you."

So I retraced my steps to see what she wanted. She was with a customer at the moment, so I thought I'd wait until she was through before talking to her, but she decided to work the conversation in while she was dealing with the customer's order. So the following exchange occurred in front of a customer:

D: Are you working Sunday?
Me: Yep. Why? What's up?
D: Oh. So am I. My husband wanted to take the boys out for a hike in the mountains, but if I'm working, there's no one to take care of the baby.
(My thought at this point: Oh, she just wanted to see if I'd take her shift.)
D: I just thought, if you were off that day... I could pay you...
Me: Pay me? For what?
D: Watching the baby for the day.
(Cue my fiance and I bursting into uncontrollable laughter.)
Me: Sorry, hon. But I'd much rather take the shift than the baby.
(Both D and Customer look horrified)
D (voice high pitched with shock): Really? No way! You're kidding!
My fiance (still laughing): Trust me, she means it.

And we waved goodnight, gone before the look of complete shock left her features. Outside, my fiance told me she had been asking him about our wedding plans while I was talking to the manager. I guess she assumed I was finally getting married (she knows our engagement has stretched on for years) because I was "ready" for kids. I guess I'll have to talk to her about it tomorrow, but I enjoyed that conversation and wanted to share.

Marriage=babies?????

That is so weird. Why would she assume you'd want to babysit? I guess SHE'D rather work than be with her baby too?? Very strange. It seems like normally people ask babysitters to babysit, and beyond that relatives or young people without a job. But to ask a working person to babysit while they could be working strikes me as very presumptious (is that even a word?) and irritating.

What Frieda said. Incredible.

OMG! Well, at least you cleared that up! She won't be asking you to babysit again.

Unreal.

Worked with her today. She was as sweet and friendly as ever, but didn't say a word about kids, babysitting, or hiking trips. Didn't talk about anything beyond work stuff. Maybe I freaked her out a little bit...

Tee-hee!

I think it is odd that she would ask you to watch her baby if she had the option to ask you to take her shift?? If I were a mother (note I said IF), I would want to watch my own baby if it was possible. Work better than baby??? That's pretty bad!! And what gave her the idea you'd want to watch her kid in the first place?! Geez..

Good for you though, for clearing that up right away!

"snorts"

What, she just slings her kid off to anyone? WT??????

Tell the DH to get one of those carriers and take the spawn with him on his hiking trip. Extra weight = better exercise.

The last person that asked me to babysit got hit with "Awesome! We can go to the tattoo parlour, and then to the pub for some rounds. I hear kids LOVE that sort of stuff!" Needless to say, I'm now blacklisted. Some people have no sense of humour.

[quote=Pikasam
Tell the DH to get one of those carriers and take the spawn with him on his hiking trip. Extra weight = better exercise.
[/quote]

Pikasam, that's what I was thinking! Haven't they heard of these 'modern inventions'?!